Homeland perimeter security blanket

Up until it was taken down a couple of days ago, this was the front page for the 2011 Ottawa Conference on Defence and Security bunfest.

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It was hosted by the Conference of Defence Associations, CDA Institute, described on their website as "a non-partisan, independent, and non-profit organization" ... aka a military lobby group primarily funded by the Department of National Defence.

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I found it kind of touching - the way the logos of all the corporate defence contractors are laid out so boldly right under the word "AGENDA" like that.

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Some highlights from the first panel group, moderated by CDA/CDFAI deep integrationist Colin Robertson, on loan from DFAIT to direct the Canada-US Project, to which the new SPP Harper Obama perimeter security blanket bears a singular resemblance.

Everyone was very bumfed up about the Harper Obama plan for armouring NAFTA :

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Michael Wilson, former Canadian ambassador to the US and Nafta negotiator : "The definition of national security includes energy and the economy."

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James Blanchard, former U.S. ambassador to Canada and Nafta negotiator :

"We hear the phrase ‘security trumps trade’ but the fact is energy security is part of security. To suggest they are separate and apart is a lot of baloney.
I don’t think the average person understands how closely we co-operate already on information and technology in the military or people would not be throwing around the word sovereignty so loosely."

Lt.-Gen. Frank Grass, deputy commander of U.S. Northern Command, on expanding NORAD to include land and sea:

"We’ve brought NORAD and NorthCom together - the Canadian and US staff below command level are fully integrated. The civil assistance program is already operational. Ready to help RCMP during the Olympics, we prepositioned forces south of the border – another example of the great cooperation we have with CanCom."

A question from the floor from retired diplomat John Noble : "BMD ... ballistic missile defence ...Is the door still open?"
Michael Wilson : "We should have joined the US in BMD. I hope discussions can be reopened."

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Yesterday Janet Napolitano addressed the US Senate Committee "Department of Homeland Security Oversight" :

Canada Minister of Public Safety Vic Toews and DHS announced a first of its kind plan to establish a comprehensive cross-border approach to critical infrastructure resilience, focused on sharing information and assessing and managing joint risks.

Moreover, last month, President Obama and Prime Minister Harper signed a landmark "Shared Vision for Perimeter Security and Economic Competitiveness" that sets forth how our two countries will manage our shared homeland and economic security in the 21st century."

Our shared homeland and economic security?

A bit later on she mentions protecting "shared assets and key resources".

It's all about sharing evidently. Lots and lots of sharing.

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This deep integration stuff has always been pitched to Canada as : After 9/11, we have to go security for the Americans so they'll continue to buy our stuff. Security vs. trade.

But there is no balancing of opposites going on here really, is there? There's just the one deal - markets and resources wrapped up in a big old homeland perimeter security blanket. With logos.

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The Canada-US border : thicker but fuzzier

For all the wringing of hands in the national press about how US security concerns are resulting in a "thicker Canada-US border", scant attention is paid to how that border is also getting blurrier, unless to repeat government assurances that it is not.

Case in point is yesterday's announcement of the Shiprider program, signed Monday by Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano - an agreement "designed to increase border security by allowing the RCMP and the U.S. Coast Guard to team up and ride in each others' vessels during border patrols."

Van Loan said the pact shouldn't be viewed as Americans encroaching on the jurisdiction of Canada because it's a joint effort between both countries.
And he stressed that security and trade between the two countries can be mutually beneficial.
"Because of the integration of our North American economies ... effective management of the border is essential to the health of both of our countries' economies," said Van Loan.

According to former diplomat Paul Frazer, Canadians shouldn't be alarmed by the prospect of foreign officers policing Canada's waters.
"It's not a one way kind of operation," he told CTV's Power Play from Washington on
Tuesday.
Frazer stressed that the new plan is a quid-pro-quo deal for Canada.
"You will have Canadian authorities aboard American boats, going into American waters, and the reverse coming into Canadian waters."

Right. That sounds fair : the flea will ride on the elephant and then the elephant will ride on the flea.
A couple of points not covered by our enthusiastic media but clearly stated in the agreement :

COMMITTED to the prevention, detection, suppression, investigation, and prosecution of any criminal offence or violation of law related to border enforcement including, but not limited to, the illicit drug trade, migrant smuggling, trafficking of firearms, the smuggling of counterfeit goods and money, and terrorism

based on joint Canada-United States threat and risk assessment and coordinated with existing cooperative cross-border policing programs and activities.

That seems rather ... broad, considering that any "integrated cross-border maritime law enforcement operation" may also continue "on land" and include "aerial support".

But where it gets weird is the section called Information Sharing.
Info is not to be "further shared" with "a non-participating government agency or a foreign country" without "the consent of the participating agency sharing the information" ... "unless the use or further sharing is required by its domestic laws" or there are "exigent circumstances".

Exigent circumstances.

All of which is merely fleshing out the details of last year's Canada-US pact allowing cross-border military activity , following the disclosure two years earlier that 30% of FBI agents operating in Canada do so without the knowledge or approval of the Canadian government.

Well now we have yet another agreement to legalize the decline of Canadian sovereignty.
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George Galloway runs smack into the Canada-Israel border

Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, has stated repeatedly that the banning of George Galloway from Canada is not his responsibility.

Well of course it isn't.

It's the responsibility of the Canadian Border Services Agency under Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan.

Say, how's that Canada-Israel "homeland security" border coming along?

State of Israel - Ministry of Public Security :

"On November 17-26, a delegation from the Ministry of Public Security visited the United States and Canada on an official visit. The visit was within the framework of the joint work team with the American Department of Homeland Security on Science and Technology.

In March 2008 a Declaration of Intent was signed between the Israeli Ministry of Public Security and the Canadian Ministry of Public Safety in order to promote mutual interests in the fields of the battle against organized crime, human trafficking, terrorist financing, managing crisis situations, border security, crime prevention and other aspects of homeland security.

The first work meetings of the two sides were held on November 24-26 in Ottawa, Canada, with the aim at forming a framework for the implementation of the agreement signed between the two countries.
The meetings were attended by the Deputy Director General of the Ministry, the Chief Scientist, representatives of the Israel Police and the Israel Prison Service, a representative of the Counter Terrorism Division in the Office of the Israeli Prime Minister, and representatives of the Canadian Ministry of Public Safety, the Canadian Police and Canadian Prison Service.

The meetings focused on the following fields:
Security of strategic facilities
Border control
Emergency preparedness
Correction facilities and services
Crime and delinquency
Science and technology – including law enforcement and counter terrorism technologies.

During the meetings the two parties surveyed their primary activities in their fields and examined potential projects of mutual interest. The meetings concluded by deciding on primary principles of the operational and technological cooperation between the two countries in the above fields. "

Public Safety Canada :

Declaration of Intent Between the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness of Canada and the Ministry of Public Security of the Government of the State of Israel :

To establish a Management Committee that would:

• Be comprised of the Deputy Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness of Canada, and the Director General of Public Security for the Government of the State of Israel;
• Meet annually and as needed to develop and approve a program of work, consistent with the scope and objectives of this Declaration, for that upcoming year;

To achieve the following objectives:

• Build on their shared commitment to facilitate and enhance cooperation to protect their respective countries’ population, assets and interests from common threats;


• Integrate and coordinate of the identification, prioritization, and implementation of cooperative efforts between themselves in the area of public safety;

I'm guessing somewhere amongst all that "shared commitment" and "enhanced cooperation", George Galloway fell under the heading of "aspects of homeland security : projects of mutual interest".

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Harper is seen above on Thursday "urging all Canadians to confront what he calls a 'rising tide of anti-Semitism' around the world" :

Harper, who was joined by Conservative MP Peter Kent, who represents the area, urged all Canadians to "confront" anti-Semitism as a "moral evil."

Speaking of "moral evil", Harper has previously joined George Bush in publicly attempting to blur the lines between criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism.

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Presumably he's referring in his speech above to people like this or this or this or this .

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What can you do about it? L-Girl has a list of actions.

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North America Next

A year ago the U.S. Department of Homeland Security gave Arizona State University $15 million to establish a Center of Excellence for Border Security and Immigration. The border security research centre is led by Rick Van Schoik, director of ASU’s North American Center for Transborder Studies.
Arizona State U presser, Feb. 2008 :

"The establishment of the center by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security follows more than two years of work assembling a team of U.S. universities, Mexican and Canadian institutions, government agencies, technology companies and national laboratories.

Research at the center will focus on new technologies such as surveillance, screening, data fusion and situational awareness using sensors, unmanned aerial vehicles and other technologies. The center will also provide research on population dynamics, immigration administration and enforcement, operational analysis, control and communications, immigration policy, civic integration and citizenship, border risk management and international governance."

Canadian advisors to NACTS include Former Deputy Prime Minister of Canada Anne McLellan and Christine Frechette, Director of the North American Forum on Integration, and York University and the University of Alberta, along with notable US deep integrationists Stephen Blank and Robert Pastor.

In their Feb 2009 policy paper "North America Next: A Report to President Obama on Building Sustainable Security and Competitiveness", they make eight recommendations calling for deeper integration, including :

• the inclusion of private sector and public-private P3 partnerships in meet-ups prior to the North American Trilateral Leaders’ Summits
• a National Security Council deputy to expand their "focus on traditional security to include law enforcement, commerce, transportation, environment, water, and regional development in the three countries"
• enhanced overall joint defense of North America which would allow Canada to continue responsibility for the Artic
• a joint revolving fund for infrastructure investments in North America
• a North American Greenhouse Gas Exchange Strategy to "ensure the United States continues to have priority access to Canada’s wealth of hydro-electricity, natural gas, light petroleum and uranium in exchange for offsets for the greenhouse gases created by their development"
• "moving the U.S.-Mexican and U.S.-Canadian borders (and their processing costs) away from the (actual) borders to the factories and farms from which trade goods originate", and
• "building and improving trade corridors like CANAMEX that go from northern Canada to southern Mexico".

The paper recommends less emphasis on "integration" and more on "plug and play interoperability".

Just keeping you up on the new North American language here.

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More no-fly list nonsense

In Terry Gilliam's apocalyptic movie, Brazil, which he would have preferred to name 1984 1/2, a hapless bureaucrat investigates a mistake in a ridiculously counterproductive terrorist tracking system that has confused an innocent Mr. Buttle with a terrorist named Tuttle. Buttle is arrested and killed. It was a typing error.

Glenda Hutton, a 66 year old retired elementary BC school secretary, never arrested, has joined the ranks of 5 year olds and US senators whose names have mysteriously appeared on some no-fly list or other, preventing her from fulfilling her lifelong retirement dream of world travel with her husband.
Apparently her name resembles that of someone else on a list, although she cannot find out which one.

As Julie Morand of Passport Canada explained to her, "In fact … you should always be questioned since a name similar to yours appears to be on an American list."

Excuse me? A similar name on an American list?

An Ottawa Citizen article, no longer available, from Sept 2006 reported that :
"Air Transport Association of Canada uses the US Homeland Security no-fly selectee list to screen passengers even on domestic flights from one point in Canada to another. They do this despite Transport Canada's statement that there is no requirement for them to do so. There are reportedly 70,000 people on that list."

And that was two years ago.

Thirteen months after Glenda Hutton was stopped while boarding a domestic Air Canada flight from Comox to Calgary, Transport Canada, the Dept of Foreign Affairs, the Dept of Public Safety, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security have all for their various reasons been unable to help her.

Note to actual terrorists : Don't use the name Glenda Hutton. Or Glenda Button.

Yes, where are all the "good Canadians"?

Christopher Sands, "an influential analyst on Canada-U.S. relations" for the Hudson Institute, Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the North American Competitiveness Council brought his deep integration big stick up to Ottawa on Friday.

"In exchange for continued visa-free access to the United States, American officials are pressuring the federal government to supply them with more information on Canadians.
Not only about (routine) individuals but also about people that you may be looking at for reasons, but there's no indictment and there's no charge."

You mean people like Maher Arar?

"People in Canada have turned the man into some sort of national hero, but if you expect the next administration to join you in sending him laurels, I think you're going to be mistaken. Even Barack Obama ... is not going to go near that with a 10-foot pole."

Arar "will not have his name removed from the U.S. no-fly list "in my lifetime," he added.

Sands recounts a conversation with Stewart Baker, assistant secretary of policy at the Department of Homeland Security :

Canadians have "had a better deal than anybody else in terms of access to the United States and for that they've paid nothing."
Now "we want to give you less access, but we want you to pay more and, by the way, we're standardizing this (with other visa-free countries) so you're not special anymore."

According to Sands :

"Homeland security is the gatekeeper with its finger on the jugular affecting your ability to move back and forth across the border, the market access upon which the Canadian economy depends."

Dr Dawg's Shorter Sands : "Nice country you've got there--be a shame if anything happened to it."

It's just too bad we mostly missed the boat on Iraq, isn't it?
Back in January 2007, Sands introduced Sockwell Day to the Hudson Institute thusly :

"I was struck back in 2003 after doing a briefing with some people in the Administration. It had been a rough year. We were getting ready to go to Iraq.
Canada-US relations were somewhat strained by that. At the end of the riefing which had been a little bit grim -- about how Canada and the US could work together better in this war on terror that we were facing, the person I was briefing paused and said to me, 'Chris, where are all the good Canadians?'

When he said that it broke a little bit of my heart, because I'm an American but I love the Canadians. I think what he meant by that was 'Where are the Canadians of World War I and World War II, that people understood to be... even when Europeans didn't, those allies we had come to count on.'

Well, I have good news. Our speaker today is one of the good Canadians..."

Good Canadian Sockwell Day, our new Minister of International Trade.
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One million served

In March a CNN report advised that seven years after 9/11, less than 1% of U.S. daily flights carry armed federal air marshals.

The Transportation Security Administration denied the report and began an investigation into who leaked the info to CNN, calling it a national security leak.

Then it placed the CNN reporter on the no-fly list.

And in this way the US terrorist watch list eventually reached one million names, according to the ACLU, who call it a waste of time and resources.

Paul Craig Roberts : "It's worse than that. What the “watch list” or “no-fly list” is doing is training Americans to submit to warrantless searches, to abandon their constitutional rights, and to submit to humiliation by thugs and bullies."

Yes. They are being acclimatized to what they surely know is merely bureaucratic bullying.

Are we in Canada paying attention?

SPP : TOPOFF 5 and the 2010 Olympics

24 Hours : "Canada, U.S. and Mexico are planning a massive joint military exercise in April 2009 "to focus on terrorist events that could affect [the] 2010 Olympics," according to Public Safety Canada documents released to 2010 Watch via access to information.

The rehearsal, led by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, is code-named TOPOFF 5. Canadian troops were among the 15,000 participants involved in last October's TOPOFF 4 in Portland, Ore., Phoenix, Ariz. and Guam.

"Exercises provide unique training opportunities to strengthen our ability to deal with potential emergencies," said Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day in an e-mail statement responding to 24 hours' interview request. "They are important tools to strengthen Canada's ability to deal with real incidents."

An undated Public Safety Canada report said up to $22.8 million was needed to fund emergency management, counter-terrorism, cyber security and critical infrastructure protection exercises, "leading to a trilateral full-scale exercise prior to the Vancouver Olympic Games in 2010, as outlined under the Security and Prosperity Partnership."

Now because I'm just not used to finding groundbreaking information about 'deep integration' military wargames in a free newspaper blowing around a bus shelter, I looked on the Public Safety Canada website. Unsurprisingly they don't mention it but the always frighteningly helpful US Dept of Homeland Security website does. Their National Exercise Program (NEP) page has a five year calendar and the June and July 2009 boxes read:
"National Level Exercise 09 Terrorism
TOPOFF 5 (Olympics Prep)."
The lavender colour coding indicates it is "Tier 1: White House directed, U.S. Government-wide Strategy and Policy Focus, Full Participation".


These TOPOFF exercises occur every two years and if this next one is going to take place in Canada around the Olympics, it might explain this news item from a couple of weeks ago :

Canada, US agree to share troops in civil emergencies
"Canada and the U.S. have signed an agreement that paves the way for the militaries from either nation to send troops across each other's borders during an emergency".

I wonder what qualifies as a "civil emergency".

SPP : Nukes and kitty litter

G&M : "Terrorists could easily carry nuclear materials for a dirty bomb from Canada into the United States, the U.S. Congress was told yesterday, sparking demands for much greater border security.
"With the exception of the U.S., there are more international terrorist organizations active in Canada than anywhere else in the world," Senator Ken Salazar, a Colorado Democrat, said."

Leaving aside for a moment his admission that there are more international terrorist orgs in the US than there are in Canada, what we want to know is what is being done about terrorists smuggling kitty litter from Canada into the US.

The Department of Homeland Security is on the case.
Since, you know, that date, the DHS has deployed a $200 million national network of detectors known as radiation portal monitors to protect US ports and borders against nuclear weapons and dirty bombs.
The trouble with these devices is that they often cannot distinguish between a nuclear device and cat litter.

[Ed. note : If only somone had asked me, I would have personally been willing to fail to determine the difference between kitty litter and a nuclear bomb for merely half that much.]

Evidently stung by US Government Accountability Office criticism of their kitty litter detecting device boondoggle, DHS officials commissioned a whole new batch of detectors, called Advanced Spectroscopic Portals, at an estimated cost of $1.2 billion. The DHS then helped the contractor pass the dry run tests by "allowing contractors to "collect test data" about the kinds of radioactive materials they would be screening and then to "adjust their systems accordingly" for the actual tests in February and March."
The GAO is unimpressed and there will be further tests.

But back to the G&M and the official Canadian government reaction to the news that there are more international terrorist orgs in the US than there are here in Canada and that this is somehow our fault and we should do something about it, goddamnit :

"Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said Canada has an aggressive anti-terrorism program... adding that Canada is safer than it was 1½ years ago.[Ed.: *snigger*]
Mr. Day said Canada has put $431-million toward improving infrastructure at border points and $19.5-million to expanding integrated border teams."

Actually we've done better than that - the Canadian company Bubble Technology Industries (BTI) has partnered with Raytheon to make the new and improved but interestingly tested kitty litter detectors.

And why should we care whether the DHS is acting as a mere extension of the defence industry while operating as a US government department at the same time?
Because the DHS is coordinating the security working groups of the Security and Prosperity Partnership, that's why.

SPP : Jelly beans and the DHS

At the Montebello press conference, a reporter asked Harper, Bush, and Calderon point blank whether the SPP agenda on border security, energy, and streamlining regulations was a prelude to a North American union and hey, what about that NAFTA highway?

Harper :

"Is the sovereignty of Canada going to fall apart if we standardize the jelly bean? You know, I don't think so."

Bush twice said he was "amused by the conspiracy theories" and "It's quite comical, actually, when you realize the difference between the reality and what some people are talking on TV about."

Jelly beans and Bush's particular take on reality vs TV. OK then.

The above letterhead is from one of the only internal government documents we have to date on the SPP. Obtained via a Freedom of Information request from the US government watchdog group, Judicial Watch, it is a memo from Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, this Michael Chertoff :

"I want to take this opportunity to thank you and your respective staffs for your support of the SPP up to this point. The components involved in the development of the SPP implementation report substantially advanced our homeland security agenda with Canada and Mexico." 

"DHS-led U.S.-Canada and U.S.-Mexico groups already in existence will take on the SPP actions within their scope. That said, the SPP has, in addition to identifying a number of new action items, comprehensively rolled up most of our existing homeland security-related policy initiatives with Canada and Mexico, and ongoing action and reporting in the various U.S.-Canada and U.S.-Mexico working groups led by DHS should now be driven by a single agenda : the SPP."

We now return you to your regularly scheduled coverage of jelly beans and Bush's take on reality.
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